Aircraft interior giant, Santos Aviation to save domestic airlines fortunes
A new regime of backward integration has started in the nation’s aviation sector with the entrance of Santos Aviation in local refurbishment of aircraft interior.
Business Hilights gathered that Santos Aviation, will apart from saving humongous costs and capital flights for domestic airlines from going abroad for interior refurbishments, the firm will further create a value chain of employment starting from leather and synthetic cover producers to adhesives companies and thread firms in the country.
Industry analysts say with the emergence of the aircraft interior firm, issues of capital flights on routine maintenance would become a thing of the past.
Available statistics show that the new firm will attempt to save an estimated cost of $100,000 (N36 million) per aircraft.
Giving an insight in an interview in Lagos, Chief Executive Officer of 7-Stars Global hangar, a partner in the new service, Isaac Balami, said Santos Aviation would solve the problem of Nigerian aircraft owners from going abroad to have their aircraft interiors refurbished.
According to him, “It is a huge relief. It is going to create jobs. It will increase safety and also the comfort of our passengers.”
“Again, with 7-Stars global hangar, working together with Santos Aviation, the partnership would attract other airlines from other West Africa countries to Nigeria for patronage.
“I want to commend the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for being supportive of the project as over 50 per cent of aircraft in the country came in from the United States, where some of the staffers had earlier trained and worked,” Balami noted.
Explaining more, a top official of the NCAA, Bello Akinola, agreed that the coming of Santos Aviation into the country’s aviation sector was a very big business for Nigerians.
He revealed that whereas out of the 150 private jets in Nigeria about 30 were American registered, jet owners, who always carry out their interior refurbishing in Canada, South Africa and America, now have Nigeria with ease.
He noted that, “We have facility but only for maintenance. It is a good thing for us in Nigeria. It will save us a lot of money from capital flight.”
Making his inputs, the President of Santos Aviation Limited, Segun Adesanya, said the skills of the company in the provision of maintenance and interior refurbishing services to both government and privately owned aircraft will have no match in the continent.
